Implementation Plans for South Africa's Biodiversity and Ecosystems Climate Change Adaptation Strategies

This project was made up of two components – the development of biodiversity adaptation plans and the revision of SA’s EbA Strategy and Action Plan. In 2021, a revised biome vulnerability assessment was carried out, culminating in the revised Biome Adaptation Strategy. The Biodiversity Adaptation Strategy updated the previous assessments and strategy documents based on more recent estimates of climate change and impacts on vegetation.  But no detailed implementation plans for improving biodiversity resilience were prepared to support this strategy. Thus, the aim of the first component of work was to turn that strategy into an implementation plan for the period 2025-2034. The process of preparing the implementation plans involved a comprehensive review of relevant documents and datasets as well as some consultation with stakeholders. Following the review and interviews, the implementation plans were drafted using a logical framework or logframe and were presented to stakeholders at nine provincial workshops for comment and validation.

For the second stream of work, an updated EbA Strategy and Plan for the next ten years was produced. This involved a critical evaluation and review of the existing Strategy and Plan for EbA that was produced in 2016, and associated EbA Guidelines and priority mapping plan. It also included a detailed review of nature-based solutions (NBS) to check and develop understanding of all the jargon and the international developments in this area, reviewing lessons learned globally and in South Africa.  Following this, the current strategy and objectives and actions were crafted ensuring that it is compatible with and complements the actions and governance of the biome-centred adaptation plan (developed under component one).